Leander Kahney's Blog, page 2285

Some More Apps For This And That

Hands up if AT&T drives you insane. The iPhone can do a lot of great things, but some people find that actually making calls is not one of its standout features.
Here's a video of quick iPhone gags, some of them at AT&T's expense. Stick with it, the final use for the iPhone is one that [...:]

iPhone Apps Weekly Digest: Stitching Photos, Karate-Kicking Sharks In The Head, and Sedate Shape Games

It's time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.
This time, we review Action Hero, AutoStitch Panorama, Battleship, BDD • Büro Destruct Designer, Blackjack 21, Dropbox, Moodagent, Polyhedra, Run!, and Type Drawing.

APP OF THE WEEK
AutoStitch Panorama: Stunning automated panorama-creation tool. Fast, pretty accurate [...:]

Daily Deals: 2.66GHz Mac Pro 4-Core Tower, iPad App Price Drops, $129 8GB iPod nano

We wrap up another week of deals with a couple hardware bargains and some price cuts on apps for the new iPad. First up is a quad-core 2.66GHz Mac Pro Tower with 8GB of RAM and a 24-inch LCD monitor for $3,499. Next is a number of iPad apps sporting lower prices, including UNO HD, [...:]

It's All About Virtual Goods: OpenFeint, Plus+ Thrilled About Game Center

Yesterday's announcement of the Apple Game Center was exciting news for serious iPhone OS gamers: it's a defragmentation move by Apple to consolidate all of the many social gaming services like OpenFeint, Plus+ and others. Gamers can expect a uniform social gaming experience across all their iPhone games with features like universal friends lists, [...:]

Digital Music Sales Fall as iTunes Prices Increase

Remember the heady days when digital music sales were a runaway train; a bull in a china shop eating the lunch of traditional music – and many other mixed metaphors? The salad days may be nearing an end – or at least the all-you-can-eat period. Apple could be to blame, say critics.
For the first [...:]

iPhone OS 4.0 Beta Shows iChat Process, Video Chat Incoming?

Although the iPad doesn't contain a camera, references in the iPhone OS 3.2 software to the functionality strongly implied the addition of video chat to future Apple devices. We probably won't see video come to the iPad until the next generation of devices to debut next year, but video conferencing on the next iPhone isn't [...:]

iPhone OS 4.0 Beta Jailbroken

Well, that didn't take very long. Less than a day after the iPhone OS 4.0 beta was released to developers, iPhone hacker Musclenerd has already jailbroken it.
So as not to jeopardize a working jailbreak technique before the final iPhone 4.0 update hits handhelds, no one's talking about the exact jailbreaking method being employed here. [...:]

Apple Plans Chrome-Like Safari Split Process Update

Although Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browsers are increasingly competitive, they soon will have one technical issue in common: one out-of-control Web page won't force you to shut your entire application. The feature is known as the "split process model," but mortals have a more-easily grasped image: the sandbox.
As part of updating the open source [...:]

Jobs Hints iPhone Quarterly Sales Beat Expectations

Along with the introduction of multi-tasking for iPhone apps, performance upgrades and mobile advertising, the iPhone OS 4.0 event Thursday also offered some insight for Wall Street. CEO Steve Jobs said iPhone sales had passed the 50 million unit mark, which translates to around 7.5 million Apple handsets shipped in the March quarter.
The figure had [...:]

iPhone OS 4.0: Digging Deeper Into New Features

iPhone OS 4.0 has been out for less than a day, but let's dig a little deeper into the beta preview.
The home screen shot above captures what happened when I was trying to rearrange apps. The UI is still quite buggy and all hell can break loose when you least expect it. Moving apps around [...:]